Law Grads Sue Alma Maters For Millions In Tuition Refunds

Law schools across the country are gearing up to greet the freshest batch of wannabe lawyers later this month. But some will be dealing with more than just ice cream socials and welcome parties – namely, lawsuits alleging the schools purposefully inflated employment statistics to attract more students.

Two lawsuits seeking class action status were filed today against Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Michigan and New York Law School. The several plaintiffs, who are all graduates of the defendant schools, seek $250 million from Cooley and $200 million from NYLS in tuition refunds, as well as other damages and reformed employment statistic reporting practices.

Both lawsuits state that the plaintiffs seek “to remedy a systemic, ongoing fraud that is ubiquitous in the legal education industry and threatens to leave a generation of law students in dire financial straits.”

Plaintiffs’ attorney David Anziska said his firm, Kurzon Strauss LLP, chose these two particular law schools in large part because of their large class sizes, with Cooley – at about 1,000 students in each year – the biggest in the country by far.

The lawsuits argue that the law schools have distorted their post-graduate employment information by advertising the percentage of those who secure any kind of job within nine months of graduation, even ones that don’t have anything to do with the legal industry. They also allege that the reported amount for graduates’ average salaries is inflated since it is derived from a narrow, self-selected pool of people who actually provide that information to the school.

A graduate of San Diego’s Thomas Jefferson School of Law filed a similar class action suit in May, as reported here by the Law Blog.

Jim Thelen, Cooley’s general counsel, told the Law Blog that if any of the plaintiffs or their attorneys has issue with how law schools report employment numbers, then they ought to take it up with the American Bar Association, or even the Department of Education – but not with individual law schools.

“These are nothing other than attempts to bring public attention to this issue,” Thelen said, “and it certainly doesn’t seem like the right way to go about it.”

New York Law School Dean Richard Matasar said in a statement that the alleged claims “are without merit and we will vigorously defend against them in court.”

Last month, Cooley filed a lawsuit against Kurzon Strauss LLP – the firm representing the plaintiffs in both of the cases filed today – for propagating defamatory ads on Craigslist and Facebook about the school. The postings were part of the law firm’s investigation into how law schools report employment statistics. (Read here for previous Law Blog coverage.)

Kurzon Strauss attorneys have until tomorrow under Michigan state guidelines to respond to Cooley’s lawsuit, Thelen said.

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The Law Blog covers the legal arena’s hot cases, emerging trends and big personalities. It’s brought to you by lead writer Jacob Gershman with contributions from across The Wall Street Journal’s staff. Jacob comes here after more than half a decade covering the bare-knuckle politics of New York State. His inside-the-room reporting left him steeped in legal and regulatory issues that continue to grab headlines.

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